'I knew I was going to die': Woman relives the horror of her abduction by a serial killer 24 years ago and reveals how she escaped

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A woman who escaped a brutal abduction by a notorious serial killer in 1992 has returned to the site of the crime to share her story a reveal how she escaped.

Jennifer Asbenson was just 19 when she was abducted by Andrew Urdiales in 1992, in Desert Hot Springs, California.

Urdiales killed at least eight women, and Asbenson is the only of his victims known to escape.

Asbenson recently returned to what she says is the exact scene of her abduction and assault to shoot a video of her recollections about the attack.

Asbenson recently returned to what she says is the exact scene of her abduction and assault to shoot a video of her recollections about the attack

It's been 24 years since Asbenson escaped from serial killer Andrew Urdiales

'I wanted my viewers to be there with me, in real time,' Ms Asbenson told news.com.au.

'I wanted them to hear everything in my own words, without interruption. I wanted them to feel like they were experiencing it with me. I am not ashamed or embarrassed to be a human. So I do not edit myself. I thought people would appreciate the rawness of it.'

Asbenson was on her way to work at her job caring for disabled children a little before 10.00pm on September 27, 1992, when a man offered her a ride.

At first she declined, but then had second thoughts as the man began to pull away.

'I automatically thought ‘he can’t be any kind of crazy person because why would he pull away and not come attack me’?'

There were some warning signs. The man asked her if she liked porn, to which she replied 'No!' and told him he was creepy.

Then, at the car was at a red light, the man observed how 'quiet and peaceful' the desert was.

It was a little weird, Asbenson recalls, but 'nothing to jump out of the car for.'

The man dropped her off safely at work, and asked for her number.

She gave him a fake number.

The man in the car, Uridales, was back the next morning when she left work at 6.00am. 

He offered her a ride home, and she agreed.

'At that age I had not heard any stories of serial killers. I grew up with no electricity, no running water, television, nothing like that. I was extra naive,' she said.

When she got in the car, he was outraged over the fake number.

'He just started screaming and he pulled at my hair and called me names and said ‘no that wasn’t the number, some old lady answered that’,' she said.

'He grabbed me by the hair and he shoved my head into the dashboard.'

'I remember thinking that it was a joke and I couldn’t process it. And then a gun came out.'

'When I saw the gun I went into shock.'

Uridales bound the teenager's hands behind her back with twine, put sunglasses and and a hat on her, and leaned her seat all the way back, and then sped off in the car.

Looking up through the windows, the terrified girl could see only the telephone poles.

She counted them as they passed, growing more frightened with each one.

'His eyes they were just black,' the victim said of her abductor Andrew Urdiales

'I started telling him I’d do anything: I’ll rob a bank with you, whatever you want’.

'I was using any skill I’d ever learned in life to try and get out of this man’s possession.'

Urdiales just told her to shut up though, and kept driving into the desert.

Arriving at a remote part of the desert, he attacked Asbenson, cutting her shorts off with a knife and then ripping her underwear off. 

The vile killer shoved the girl's underwear in her mouth and then used her bra to tie the gag in place.

'The only thing I could think of the whole time was ‘I am in hell.' When I looked at his eyes they were just black.'

'And I remember thinking that I was staring into the eyes of the devil.'

Asbenson says the man tried to rape her, but failed because of 'erectile dysfunction.'

The serial killer ordered the teen girl to tell him he loved her, and she quickly complied, mumbling through the gag.

But he was unsatisfied and began strangling her.

'I just remember feeling like I was gagging and I couldn’t breathe in or out. I wasn’t in pain. I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to die seeing him'

Asbenson says the twisted killer tried to rape her, but failed because of 'erectile dysfunction' 

'Then with all my heart and soul I thought: ‘Life is so short. What is this? I’m dying today? While my friends are sleeping? While my parents are sleeping? While the lady at work is helping the children? I’m in the middle of this desert being murdered.''

Asbenson says a feeling of pure love came over her and she saw white.

But Urdiales wasn't finished, he revived the girl and began sucking and biting her neck.

When he pulled a bag of knives from the trunk of the car, she was seized with adrenaline and terror, and ran into the desert.

But the madman quickly captured her and dragged her back into the car, throwing her into the trunk.

With the girl locked in the trunk, the car sped off, and Asbenson knew she was doomed.

'The only thing I could think of the whole time was ‘I am in hell''

The girl began praying for a miracle. 

'God, if you are there, please just let me break free from these binds and escape from this trunk!' 

Then, she says, the strands of twine binding her wrists began to pop one by one as she struggled out of the bindings.

Struggling with the mechanism of the lock from the inside, she was able to open the trunk, holding it nearly closed until the car slowed down.

Then, she jumped from the car and began running for her life. 

'I think ‘don’t look back, don’t ever look back’. But I look back. He was chasing me down the middle of the road with a machete. So I just ran, a car was coming towards me, it was a truck. I was spent. It could have run me over. But instead, it was two marines and they stopped.'

The marines lent the girl a pair of jeans and took her to a gas station to call the police.

But nobody believed the girl's story, and it would be five years until Urdiales was finally apprehended.

In the meantime he killed three more women, in Illinois.

Urdiales' Illinois victims: Laura Uylaki (left), Cassandra Corum (center), and Lynn Huber (right)

In 1997 Urdiales was arrested and confessed to killing a total of eight women and abducting Asbenson. 

He was twice put on death row in Illinois, where he killed three of the women. But Urdiales escaped the ultimate penalty both times, once when the sentence was commuted, and again when the state abolished the death penalty, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Urdiales has been extradited back to California, which retains the death penalty, and is expected to stand trial there later this year.

Asbenson, 43, has a 20-year-old daughter and is in the process of writing a book.

She plans to testify at the California trial, and will push for the death penalty. 

Urdiales is expected to face trial again this year in California (file photo)